White Tears Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Colour

White lady here. Good important book with a lot of crucial history and anecdotes on why white women are far from absolved from our role in white supremacy. We’re useful tools, but also beneficiaries.Reading, listening, reassessing, and accepting our shared blame in the system is crucial in order to move forward.

I highly recommend this book. Hamad incorporates salient current themes in a powerful work that advanced my understanding. Very well written—I could barely put it down and will reread the many sections I have marked.

This is an important contribution to the far-ranging conversation about white supremacy and the destructive ways it shapes how we humans see and treat each other. Hamad’s writing takes us across history and around the globe to demonstrate systemic and personal misuses of power that white women wield over Black and Brown people. She’s a clear writer, a careful researcher, and an engaging storyteller.I’ll be re-reading “White Tears/Brown Scars” and look forward to using it in anti-racism discussion groups, while recognizing that anti-racism work must lead to action.#NetGalley, #WhiteTearsBrownScars

I firmly believe that your worldview is only as broad as your lived experiences, unless — & this part is key! — you are open to learning from others’ lived experiences without the preconceived notion that yours is inherently better because it’s, well, yours.I keep pausing to underline & process what I’m reading, and it is nothing short of life-altering. Ruby Hamad provides a sobering historical context for intersectional feminism that is helping me come to terms with areas where my own worldview still needs stretching.If you want to become a better ally, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

From my FB blog, Race for Equality.Ruby Hamad’s book, “White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color”, is a multi pronged critique of not only white feminism but also white culture. It was a pleasant surprise to read how she expands her criticism of these topics on a global level rather than restricting her discussion to our current domestic problems. Hamad’s examination is extensive, insightful, and deeply personal.As I insinuated above, I expected to read a book that was exclusively about white feminism. However, while the author certainly addressed that issue, she expanded her study by including how white feminism has been a bedrock of white supremacy long before any feminist movements reared it’s head as any display of momentum or popularity. Hamad also makes a strong argument, with substantial evidence, that nearly all paradigms embedded within white feminist movements are historically founded in slave ownership.There are a two major reasons this is true. (There are more listed in her discussion than what’s in this summary but these two were her emphasis.) First, while the “master” of the household may have been the one to conduct nearly all business transactions regarding slaves on the plantations, slaves were often given to women and children as gifts or controlled by women in the home. What this means is that because women were still considered second class citizens, they drew personal value and validation from the quality and number of slaves she owned. Consequently, it created an informal caste that removed her from the bottom of social ring by placing blacks both underneath her and under her authority. Second, it had far longer and more profound social ramifications: owning slaves placed white women on a pedestal as a symbol of racial purity.The second reason needs greater clarification, however. Laws about slavery were designed to place whites above all other races while simultaneously debasing and dehumanizing black slaves. It therefore created apeculiar and contradictory sub-social structure unique to American slavery that helped maintain racial purity through white women. Those laws (covertly) allowed white men to rape black women to beget more slaves (biracial children were almost always categorized as slaves) and it prevented miscegenation between white women and black men, which in turn further demonized black men as hyper-sexualized, uncivilized brutes. In the same breath, this made white women at the heart of keeping the white race pure by symbolizing them as a source of sanctity. The only people that could touch white women were white men. We first see the ripple effects of this mentality from thousands of lynchings between 1880-1930, then the formation of Jim Crow laws through the first half of the 20th century that, for example, required black men to pay special respect towards white women, and finally a countless number of court cases that wrongfully sentenced black men to decades or life in prison (if not receiving the death penalty) due to false rape accusations from white women. Today, we call those same women “Karen’s”, though their demeanor and fragility has taken on a usually subtle variation containing that same hostility.Another aspect of white feminism that has been detrimental to blacks and to all women of color is how white women have habitually and culturally victimized themselves. Whether it be interpersonal or through a corporate atmosphere, white women have consistently turned the tables on women of color by making their feelings more important than the issue at hand, hence the partial title, “White Tears”. It doesn’t even have to be confined to matters of racism, though that is the focus of this book. This victimization can take an array of forms and circumstances to re-establish the same social hierarchy that mirrors life on the plantations so that their sense of self-worth and “purity” remain firmly grounded.On a global level, the mentality and destructiveness of “whiteness” has proved itself in every colonized nation. Evidence of this may appear to be more subtle because of our strong tendencies for ethnocentrism but careful study and research will bring it to the forefront. For example, in Asia, Africa, India, and the Middle East “colorism” is a prevailing overtone in each of their respective cultures and subcultures. It would make one think that in countries where most people are already brown or black, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, due to decades (or centuries, depending on the location) of European colonization the self-image of Indigenous people has been adversely affected into believing that the lighter you are, the “better” you are. Evidence of this can be found in everything from the marketing of cosmetics, to segregated education, to corporate hiring practices.Finally, what I found particularly interesting is how the author emphasized pervasive social inequities in Australia in terms of gender and race. The author’s analysis largely filled in many blanks for me on the topic of white feminism here in the United States but I was unaware of how ingrained Australia has been riddled with such a patronizing, patriarchal, and racist culture for centuries. There are several testimonies in the book that reveal times when white men in the workplace expect women, regardless of color (though it’s worse for women of color), to put on a mask by being cheery, behaving gratefully they have a job, and even cater to the whims of men as if they were personal secretaries. On one account, an Indigenous woman left the continent because she was not able to find a corporate culture that provided the equity she deserved. In fact, Hamad herself experienced more hostility from both sexes in Australia in her emails and on social media over her scrutiny of the lack of social equality than any other country.This book is filled with useful insights and if any reader has an open mind, the author will lead the way to a heightened sense of social awareness. I will certainly be downloading more of her writings in the near future if they are available but just as importantly, she has sparked a genuine interest for me in women’s studies and for that, I feel indebted.

This book does such a great job of exposing how white women leverage their privilege and power to keep white supremacy in place. I especially appreciated a more global perspective of how white women’s behavior affects women of color (no matter how white they may seem or look) around the world. The author does a great job of unpacking many of the harmful and limiting stereotypes women of color are categorized by and that information and understanding is incredibly useful in countering those tropes within myself and in the world at large. This book pulls no punches and does not sugarcoat anything to cater to anyone’s white fragility. Because of that, I found this book very valuable in understanding a perspective outside my own and came to realize more how my behavior as a white women can do irreparable harm to women of color. White women need to choose a different way. Highly recommend.

This book was devastating in its analysis of well researched truths and provides a historical lens to answer and provide context to cultural and political phenomenon we are seeing play out today – from BBQ Becky’s self characterization of her “victimhood” to the latest crop of female politicians to the more “genteel” violence of workplace relationships. The analysis is searing and a powerful indictment of historical, institutional and structural forces at play to this day. Hamad makes powerful observation after powerful observation from both a personal and global perspective. She argues convincingly that in order for white women to be free from the subjugation of patriarchy, they must pay more than token and opportunistic lip service about “sisterhood” with racialized women and make space in the power structure for racialized women. One of the negative reviews here seem to revolve in getting offended by this premise and because Hamad pulls absolutely punches in her observations and analysis.As mentioned earlier, the book benefits greatly in its global perspective so that it is not merely an “American” treatise because white supremacy is not solely an American sin although America does factor very significantly throughout the historical analysis and context. It goes beyond the binary of Black vs. White which is the default focus of so much racial discourses in the US. Personally, I will never hear the word “sq*w” used to describe Indigenous women the same neutral, uninformed way ever again after reading this book. Hamad manages a big tent piece of work that encompasses and provides discourse of a broad range of racialized women. Highly recommended.

Couldn’t read this without regularly pausing to reflect on my own experiences. This book is poweful because it is well researched and passionately written. Highly recommend!

This book is fantastic with analyzing the power structure dynamics of white feminism and the weaponization of white women’s tears that uphold the status quo of white supremacy and the patriarchy. I also loved the chapter that talked about how leftist political spaces so very often focus their class solidarity on whiteness, and how they fail to see that race plays a big part in class identity. This book is a must read!My favorite quotes:“Strategic White Womanhood is a spectacle that permits the actual issue at hand to take a backseat to the emotions of the white woman, with the convenient effect that the status quo continues unabated.”“However, in the same way as white feminism places the white woman as the universal norm of womanhood, the dirtbag left similarly centers the needs of the white worker. What this means in practical terms is, just as white feminists accuse women of color of dividing the sisterhood, the dirtbags similarly locate the lack of a cohesive leftist movement on people of color who dare talk about race — even those of us who analyze racism as a form of structural oppression intrinsic to Western capitalism.”

Ruby Hamad lifts the lid and pulls back the veil on the ways in which white women use their privilege and weaponise the performance of distress to deflect, detract and to drive focus away from the issues and concerns of people of colour.It is an important work to reference in challenging the subtle yet powerful form of racist oppression.

TL;DR REVIEW:White Tears/Brown Scars is a thoughtfully researched, convincingly argued, incredibly important book that should be required reading for white people everywhere.For you if: You are white, especially if you are a white cisgender woman.FULL REVIEW:“The harms caused by the gender binary can and have filled volumes of books on their own. However, rarely has it been explicitly noted that this binary, not only marginalizes those who don’t fall neatly into either category regardless of their race, but is itself one of the ways in which whiteness has maintained its domination.”First of all, huge thanks to Catapult for providing me with an advanced copy of this book. I will be shoving it into people’s hands for many years.What I expected from this book was a cultural examination of the way white women use tears to avoid confronting racism. I got that, but I also got so, so much more. This book is a deeply researched account of the history of white womanhood’s role in colonization, racism, and oppression — and its lingering effects today. It reads a little academically, but clearly and convincingly. If you were called to act by Hood Feminism and now want to learn more deeply about the history of the weaponization of white womanhood — this is absolutely the book for you.Ruby Hamad has written a globally focused book, with most attention paid to the United States and Australia. It focuses on white supremacy in general against people, most often specifically women, of color from all parts of the world — Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Arab, and more. This alone taught me much about the oppression of people of color in places outside the United States (as well as inside it).There is so much for me to internalize from this book. Right now, I continue to think deeply about Hamad’s revelation that white women hold the power to weaponize their white womanhood against everyone but white men. About the role white women played in false rape and sexual assault claims against men of color — think even of a simple imagined whistle by Emmett Till — and how we have struggled to escape the lingering repercussions of being in cahoots with the white patriarchy in this way, for example with society’s refusal to believe (or act upon) Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Brett Kavanaugh.This book was a mirror I desperately needed to look into. White women like to think that women are all “on the same side” against sexism and patriarchy — it’s more comfortable for us, a way to feel good about our place in the world. But it’s a lie. It’s been a lie for all of history, and if we keep ignoring it, we will never fix what’s wrong with our attitudes, beliefs, and actions.

This book explains white women’s tears and how they use their tears as a mechanism of defense, a retreat to safety, and ultimately, a tactic for silencing and controlling women of color. The author provides various explanations and real life occurrences to validate and support this fact (ex. The Angry Black Woman, “Karen,” “BBQ Becky”). The book has a ton of history about the initial suffering of women of color amid colonization. She also explains how white women where co-conspirators in colonizing races of color and how they were not “pure” angels as they’d like us to believe, not then and not now. Today, white women use their tears and their privilege to oppress women of color all while portraying that they are for all women (white feminism). She touches on how colonized women were not considered “women” as evident in being the “inferior” race and not being able to own their bodies having being forcibly raped and abused. White women were the standard and representation of a “woman” and white men were the representation of what was considered a “man.” How can women of color even be apart of a movement for all women (feminist movement) when colored women are not viewed as women to begin with? I personally enjoyed reading this book. I rate it a 4/5 simply because I felt the author became rather repetitive and redundant as she too often drove the same point home. It was almost as if I was rereading the same page again with a little added information or instances.

A necessary read and a real eye opener for a white women. The challenge to feminism to truly embrace a world of equality for ALL is very timely.

White lady here. Good important book with a lot of crucial history and anecdotes on why white women are far from absolved from our role in white supremacy. We’re useful tools, but also beneficiaries.Reading, listening, reassessing, and accepting our shared blame in the system is crucial in order to move forward.

Have you read this book? Because if you haven’t, you definitely need to—especially if you’re white. It should be a required reading. What an incredible, thought-provoking, challenging book. It explores harmful stereotypes of women of color and how our (white women’s) behavior affects women of color. It forces us to take a step back and evaluate other points of views that are different from our own. WHEW! What a needed word for all of us. Like some of the content creators and bookstagrams that I follow have been saying: They. Are. Tired. We need to be reflecting and doing our own work.Questions that need to be asked: “Am I reading books written by a diverse group of authors, or am I just sticking to what’s comfortable and reading white characters by white authors?” “Am I able to step back and see where I can improve? where I can advocate and amplify marginalized voices?” “Am I promoting books on my account that are written by bipoc authors?” “Am I making a conscious effort to read more intentionally?” Asking myself these questions has been so important and needed, and I’m thankful every day for content creators and authors who remind us all the effort that we must put forth if we are going to claim that we’re allies.

This book has helped me empathise better with women of colour and understand better what they have been through and are still going through at the hands of white culture and society. It explains the role white women have played and are still playing in that abuse, often hidden beneath the facade of benevolence and feminism.The dysfunctions of white society are explained in much depth and detail which gives a clear overview and understanding. It addresses the ways in which white feminism actually serves the patriarchy and keeps it in place, at the cost of women of colour and other marginalised groups.As a neurodivergent woman I can relate in some ways to the frustrations of women of colour that are outlined in this book. Although I’m white I’m also from a marginalised group of women that is excluded from white mainstream feminism. I found this book very validating in that sense.At the same time it has also made me aware of some of my own unconscious beliefs and biases that were instilled in me as a white person growing up in a white society. Thanks to this book I feel I’m better able to support women of colour in standing up against systemic oppression and inequality.I can only recommend this book and hope many people will read this and learn.

What a powerful and thought-provoking book! I would recommend that all women read it. I remember being asked if I was FIRST a black person or a woman back in the late 1960’s when both the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements were in their prime. It seems that I made the “right” choice: I have been able to minimize the scars – I guess that I’ve always known!

Hamad blends cultural topics and genuine care into her writings. She addresses the harm and pain inflicted upon WOC. As I read it in my downtime, my niece (6 years old) ask me what my book was about. We talked about how her identity as a brown girl is different but not less. She is full, powerful, and her ancestor’s wildest dreams. Thank Ruby for writing this book. It opened up a conversation of love and pride in my niece and me that is only just the beginning of our self-love and radicalization journey.

I tried to dispend all judgment while listening to this book, and just learned from the author. She makes a LOT of great points. But there were a few things that didn’t sit with well with me.It feels like this book leaves no room for white, Black, and Brown woman to love and support one another. No room to build friendships and romantic partnerships. White women are simply always trying to dominate, which would certainly make any kind of relationship impossible. I don’t believe white women are constantly and purposefully trying to wield power over women of color. Many women in this country are just struggling to survive. They don’t have time to put dominating women of color on the agenda.Israel is not a colonizing nation. Jews are not white colonizers of the middle east, Jews are indigenous to the region. Jews have lived in the Levant for millennia. To claim otherwise is absurd and erases the millions of Mizrahi Jews who have have never lived anywhere else. She talks about land rights and cultural ties to one’s land but then turns around and calls Jews colonizers.The author seems to be making the claim that white women touch Black women’s hair because they are seen as animals. As someone with with curly hair, I am aware that white women like to touch it. I don’t know why but they do. It’s highly inappropriate for strangers to touch anyone’s hair and they should be told so. But when a woman familiar with another touches her hair, I think this is because she feels they are in the same group. White women touch each other’s hair too. Certainly it’s acceptable to say that due to racism, you don’t feel a part of their group and you do not want to be touched. I understand that. But what I don’t understand is rather than assuming that a white woman feels a connection with the Black woman, she instead sees her as an animal to be petted.

This book is fantastic! I listened to it on audible first but I bought the hard copy because there is too much that i want to quote and highlight, to remember. I plan to read it all over again. The author says everything in such a smart way, but so easy to follow and understand. I hope more people read this book and that it sinks in.

“White people set the standard for humanity by which they, and only they, could succeed…. This is why people of color, and especially women of color, have to be at least twice as capable as white people in order to get half as far. The system was designed to make it as hard as possible for us but in such a way that white people can pretend the barriers simply do not exist.”I had a really hard time picking just one quote from this extremely important and informative book. I ended up choosing the two above but really could have easily included upwards of 50 quotes. #WhiteTearsBrownScars is eye-opening on one hand, and a necessary reminder of the truth on the other hand. Much of the content discussed is obvious and well known to those who experience it all the time. For those of us white people who have the unfair luxury of being able to “forget” this at times, it is a necessary reminder to keep it at the forefront of our mind, our choices, and in all our interactions with everyone around us. This book will undoubtedly anger some white people, and the irony of that will likely never be lost on the author #RubyHamad, as well as so many others.  I wish this book could be made required reading. I hope there are people who will be better, or at least make an attempt to be better, after reading this. I hope white women, like myself, will lift all women up more, and not bask in the perceived power a long history of colonialism has given us, truly at the detriment to ourselves and to black and brown women everywhere.  We are not innocent and blameless here, and we need to stop acting like we are.As tough as some of the content was to personally confront, this book is extremely readable for something so well researched. The references and history flow directly into Hamad’s points, bolstering every claim she is making with undeniable fact. The references to current events, personal experiences, and pop culture only add to this by actively displaying that society is still, unfortunately, functioning this way today.

Excellent dissection of the fraught relationships with white women. Should be required reading in any anti racism and feminism journey.

Good insight

This is the most important book I’ll read this year. I highlighted over a hundred passages. White women NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. It is layered with history and it’s connection to current realities. I cannot recommend it enough. I’ll def be rereading and would love to discuss with my white bookstagram friends.

Ruby’s honest approach to the systemic racism in existence today and white woman’s contributions to it are exactly what we as a culture need to hear. So many of us (white people) are raised to believe that the struggles of nonwhite people are over, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Ruby does a wonderful job painting a vivid picture of the struggles encountered by women (and men) of color, something of which- in my opinion- white people, especially women, desperately need to be made aware.

An excellent book , an excellent read , and a call for much needed change whilst acknowledging history!

This book makes some great points. I enjoyed when the author tied examples into narrative from recent events. Highly recommend.

There is no way on earth that my review is going to give this book proper justice – it is a brilliant, deeply researched, extremely well-written, and important book that I would recommend to everyone.White Tears/Brown Scars is an absolutely necessary read. Ruby Hamad has created a detailed overview of white supremacy through the ages, and how white women have not only benefited from this system of dominance, but also actively engaged in it (as much as we pretend that we have not, we all have). The author weaves together historical and current facts, events, and also personal experiences from a variety of different women of color that she has interviewed. The content is highly readable, but it makes for a very uncomfortable read (even if you have read anti-racist work before). Necessarily uncomfortable. The book focuses on how the white woman and white feminism have created and enforced division all over the world and continue to do so today. The author focuses on several areas in the world, such as the US, Australia, western Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa and Zimbabwe, which I found to be very eye-opening and helpful.I took so many notes, highlighted so many quotes, and have a lot of thinking to do. This is an essential read for any white woman who is intent on destroying the divisions created by white supremacy and white feminism, and doing the real work of listening, absorbing, admitting to our inability to say we are wrong, and actually learning to stand with women of color rather than just pretending to. We have so much work to do.I really appreciated how the author discusses the history of Aborginal women in Australia, as well as Arab women in the world. These are important perspectives, and I feel like I learnt a lot of new information that I need to unpack and unlearn. (Even the whole concert of “Middle East” and why we still refer to a large area of different countries, cultures, languages and dialects, and people by that name). I also really appreciated how Ruby Hamad details certain events that are specific to the US, explaining how they also directly affect the world in general (for example US presidential elections). There is an excellent discussion of the 2016 elections in the US in the second half of the book where the author focuses on how alienating it was for Arab women (amongst other women of color) when Clinton was channelled as the change the world needed, and any criticism of her was categorized as sexism or wanting Trump to win. I was personally never “with her” because she reminded me too much of Margaret Thatcher (and all that that implies), but I would still have voted for her if I were able to vote in this country. White, liberal feminism really still does a great job of stomping out any criticism that may hinder what white, liberal feminism wants, and this usually involves shaming anyone who is not white to toe the line so to speak, without actually listening to their experience and needs.In the conclusion Ruby Hamad poses some very important questions to white women, and asks that we start answering them. We have helped perpetuate stereotypes over the ages (from the Jezebel to the Angry Black Woman and so many more), we have remained happy with the status quo as we benefit from it, and we have also actively engaged in perpetrating dominance over others in the name of feminism/religion/racial divides and so on. And when confronted with this we often break down in tears with the intention of removing ourselves from the conversation without actively making any changes to the way we act. We have a choice to make, and we have to be accountable for our past, present, and our future.

Excellent guide as well as a necessary tool for women of color to read and learn how, what and why.